Baby-faced dealer jailed for 3 years

AB A B Y- FA C E D dealer is among five peo­ple jailed for deal­ing drugs in Mac­cles­field.

James John Wellings Bar­low, 20, was caught sell­ing heroin and crack co­caine to un­der­cover po­lice of­fi­cers eight times in May, last year.

He was among dozens of drug deal­ers ar­rested dur­ing a se­ries of early morn­ing raids in Mac­cles­field, and across Cheshire, Stafford­shire, Mersey­side and Manch­ester in Septem­ber aimed to clam­p­down on the sup­ply of drugs into the town.

Three other men were also jailed af­ter ad­mit­ting sell­ing heroin and crack co­caine on the streets of Mac­cles­field. Paul Roberts, 38, of Erin Close, Tox­teth, Liverpool, was jailed for 40 months; Stephen Martin O’Neill, 45, of Levens Street, Manch­ester, was jailed for 26 months; and Ryan Chad­wick, 19, of Swan­ley Av­enue, Manch­ester, was jailed for 24 months.

An 18-year-old from Liverpool, who can­not be named for le­gal rea­sons, was given a youth re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion or­der with su­per­vi­sion for 12 months and a three month cur­few af­ter ad­mit­ting three counts of deal­ing heroin and two counts of deal­ing co­caine.

Pros­e­cut­ing, Si­mon Parry, said: “Cheshire Po­lice’s covert op­er­a­tion tar­geted the sup­ply of class A drugs to Mac­cles­field and Con­gle­ton. It ran from the sum­mer of 2014 to June 2015.

“Two un­der­cover of­fi­cers iden­ti­fied var­i­ous teams of deal­ers, some multi-handed and well or­gan­ised, some sin­gle deal­ers. Each team sup­plied drugs through a mo­bile phone con­tact called a graft phone.”

The court heard that O’Neill, Chad­wick and the 18-year-old were part of a team op­er­at­ing out of Manch­ester.

Mr Parry said that O’Neill sold drugs to the un­cover of­fi­cer at Ma­sons Av­enue near the Flower Pot pub on April 15, while Chad­wick was sold drugs on Black Lane on April 23.

The court heard that Roberts and Cana­van dealt drugs from a base in Liverpool.

Mr Parry said that Cana­van sold heroin in the Water­side area of Mac­cles­field on Oc­to­ber 8, while Roberts sold heroin and co­caine in South Park on Novem­ber 17, near the steps to Bollin Val­ley on Jan­uary 9 and in wood­land on Abbey Road on Jan­uary 12.

Bar­ris­ters de­fend­ing O’Neill, Cana­van, Chad­wick and Roberts said all four had started sell­ing drugs to pay off debts.